


What You Think You're Getting for Free

by opalmatrix



Category: Saiyuki
Genre: AU: Miami-verse, Alternate Universe - 1980s, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Criminals, Crimes & Criminals, Multi, Prostitution, Sugar Daddy, miamiverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-29
Updated: 2013-10-29
Packaged: 2017-12-30 19:39:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1022616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/opalmatrix/pseuds/opalmatrix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He can get everything he thinks he wants.  Why is he still hungry?</p>
            </blockquote>





	What You Think You're Getting for Free

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Week 4 of [**weissvsaiyuki**](http://weissvsaiyuki.livejournal.com/). Prompt: _"By the Hour" - Transactions: high-class escorts, street corner prostitutes, brothels, host clubs, sugar daddies, kept men, etc._ This happens a day or so before **[emungere](http://archiveofourown.org/users/emungere/pseuds/emungere)** 's "[Five](http://archiveofourown.org/works/990951)." Thanks to [**indelicateink**](http://archiveofourown.org/users/indelicateink) for inventing [Miamiverse](http://indelicateink.livejournal.com/313888.html), and to **[emungere](http://archiveofourown.org/users/emungere/pseuds/emungere)** and **[lady_ganesh](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Ganesh/pseuds/Lady_Ganesh)** for getting the ball rolling. Beta by **[smillaraaq](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Smillaraaq/)**

_Be a good boy._

Who said that?

He was still drowning in sleep. The early morning light that managed to make its way past the shut blinds and layers of curtains wasn't enough to pull him out. He burrowed into the pillows and sank down into the dark again. Mom was in the room. He would never be any good: she always said so. She knew. He wanted to be good, so she would like him. He smiled at her, his best smile. _You think that's going to do any good?_ she said, and _she_ wasn't smiling, even though her teeth were showing. And she had a knife.

Jake's eyes flew open. His heart was going like a hammer.

"Fuck," he muttered, blinking at the filtered light coming in through the double doors that went to the balcony. How the hell could he have thought he was back in that closet of a room he'd shared with Jim in that crappy little house back in Aurora? He was lying on his plushy king-sized bed, with those fancy smooth sheets that Ulysses liked, and he had fluffy pillows and a primo cotton blanket that probably cost more than Mom used to make in a week.

He rubbed his face. It had to be almost lunchtime – not that _that_ was anything unusual. Waking up at 10:00 a.m. would be an early day for him.

His fingers smelled like Ulysses – hell, _everything_ smelled like him. And Jake's ass was sore: it was obvious Ulysses had been getting as many days' worth of fuck out of his arm candy as possible before he flew off to South America. It was weird to think he'd be gone for two months.

"Show me how much you'll miss me," he'd said. Jake had done his best, and Ulysses had seemed to think that was OK. He'd even stayed in bed with Jake for a while, with Jake crashed out on his chest. Ulysses almost never did that: when he was finished with Jake, he went off to his own suite, where the fucking _bathroom_ was bigger than the room Jake had shared with his brother when they were kids.

Jake took himself off to his own not-so-extreme bathroom. which was still pretty nice – there was a separate shower and tub, something he'd never even seen before Ulysses brought him to Miami. His reflection showed him dark shadows under his eyes, and it looked like he had some finger-shaped bruises coming on his biceps – both sides. "Something to remember you by, heh," he muttered, and decided he needed some OJ before he could even think about deciding what he wanted to do with the first of fifty-eight days without his sugar daddy.

He pulled on a pair of shorts and went out barefoot and bare-chested. There was a little kitchenette thing in the hall outside his room. It was supposed to be a bar, just like his exercise room was supposed to be a some kind of a rec room, but mostly it had juice and milk and cereal for when he wanted a snack. And there was beer, and stuff for making martinis and fancy shit like that too: Marti the cook had taught him how. Sometimes Ulysses had him make cocktails, but the way he did it made always Jake feel a lot like a dog being put through his tricks.

The juice in the pitcher was fresh: Marti had probably filled it up earlier that morning. He poured himself a glass and went past the home gym and through the little reading area (which was mostly full of fancy, arty porn) to his TV room. That was what he called it: Ulysses called it Jake's _study_ , in a way that put air quotes around it. Because it wasn't like Jake was going to study anything, except the best way to get Ulysses off.

The TV room was the only place in the house that Ulysses had let him do the way he wanted. It had a soft, red luxe rug, a black leather sofa, a black lacquered coffee table with Chinese dragons on it, a matching end table with a kick-ass color-changing fiber optic lamp, a huge TV, his Nintendo gaming system, and a really killer stereo, with a CD player as well as a turntable and a high-end cassette player, all in built-in cabinets in shiny black wood. The walls were a pale gold that was almost white – Ulysses' idea – and there were some really excellent framed posters of his favorite rock acts: Queen, Van Halen, and Twisted Sister.

There was also a framed photo of Jim on the end table, in a silver frame, and that's where things were wrong. Because there was a fucking _envelope_ leaning against Jim's face. No, it was worse than that: it was fucking _taped_ to the frame!

He damn near slammed his juice glass down on the coffee table – just barely caught himself at the last minute and put it down carefully, on one of the black leather coasters instead. Fucking Ulysses, he knew it was Ulysses. No one else in the house would do something like that with his shit. Except maybe Cam-Sam, and that wacko never came into Jake's space because he knew what Ulysses would do to him if he did.

Jake carefully peeled the tape off. It looked like there was some sticky shit on the frame. He'd have to ask Ana, the housemaid, how to get the crud off. The envelope was lime green and the right size for a greeting card, and to make the whole thing more fucked up, it was addressed to "Jakie." He wanted to rip the whole thing into little fucking shreds and set them on fire, except that it would be just like Ulysses to have something really important in there. So for the moment he crumpled it up as much as he could and stomped on it.

His bare foot made hardly any sound at all on the carpet, and he just felt stupid. He left the thing where it was – lime green paper on red carpet, really ugly – and dropped onto the sofa and stared at Jim for a while. The picture was from Jim's junior year of high school: his last year in school, actually. Ulysses had promised him a new picture. That would mean someone was going to take a picture of Jim in prison. For his baby brother, who was fucking the man who might be responsible for the fact that Jim was still _in_ prison.

_Don't think about that, dude. It just tears everything up, and it doesn't help Jim at all._

_What the hell am I doing here, anyway?_

Finally, he took a deep breath and stuffed all that shit down deep. He drank the juice and decided to run off some of the mad on the treadmill.

An hour later, still high from the run and fresh from a shower, Jake came back and ripped open the envelope. Yeah, it was a card: a spooky-cute bunny rabbit with big, empty eyes. Inside was a platinum credit card in his name and a long message in Ulysses' handwriting: 

> Honeybuns,
> 
> I know it's difficult, but try to behave yourself while I'm gone. If I find you've been into the blow or fucking some bitch without protection, you'll be out on your cute little ass, and then what will happen to poor dear Jim? I'm not really certain, but I'm sure my old friends at the penitentiary will think of something. They can become very creative with the application of a little cash.
> 
> Try not to aggravate Cameron too much. He's going to be keeping up with the paperwork while I'm gone, so he's got quite enough on his mind. I know you'll be good to the household staff — you're such a softie about the working class.
> 
> Take care of yourself. Use sunscreen when you're toasting your buns by the pool, wear your helmet when you ride the bike, put on your seatbelt when you take that tacky vehicle of yours out for a spin, and stick to Paula's or Hotwire if you need to work off your boyish energies. I don't want to come home to a clapped-out dried-up lizard on life support at Mount Sinai.
> 
> Believe it or not, I will miss you, sweet cheeks.
> 
> Your ever-loving Jennie.  
> 

Jakie and Jennie, huh? Fuck, he was _so_ creepy. The part about Jim had his brain running around frantically like a hamster on a wheel for a minute, but really, it wasn't anything Ulysses hadn't said a million times already since he brought Jake to Miami. And the rest of the letter was about what you'd expect from a man who was fucking his own son.

Not that Jake believed for a minute that Ulysses was really his dad. That was just Mr. Ulysses Jensen Neil being a manipulative asshole.

Probably, anyway.

He tapped the new credit card against the edge of the disgusting letter. Fuck. He needed to get out of the house, do something. What did it say about him that he couldn't think of what to do when Ulysses didn't have plans for him? Not to mention that he could feel his body yearning for his slimeball daddy even while he was cursing the man out in his head. He knew how to push every single one of Jake's buttons,

The clock on his stereo said 1:37. He had a platinum credit card. He could buy anything. And he needed fuck-all that he could buy. How sad was that?

Maybe he should just go down to the beach. The tourists were starting to disappear: high season was almost over. But he wanted company. If he went down to the kitchen, Marti would cook him a massive lunch, and he'd eat it so as not to disappoint her, and then he'd just want to go back to bed. Better just to grab some cereal up here.

Jake pocketed the credit card and ripped the bunny card and its envelope in half. He was about to put it all in the trash can when he thought about Ana finding it. It wasn't her fault that her boss was a psycho with the world's filthiest mind. He tossed the envelope and took the rest back to his room, where he stashed it in the back of one of the bedside tables, underneath a stack of comic books. Then he ate a bowl of the granola stuff Ulysses liked to have him eat because it was healthy and chased it with a bigger bowl of Cap'n Crunch with Crunchberries.

It was early yet, but maybe he could charm Mrs. Osgood into letting him hang out with the girls for a while. That meant he needed to look sharp. No one got into that place looking like a slob, and the girls appreciated a classier look than Jake's usual club wear.

His closet was the size of the principal's office back in grade school, but instead of Mrs. Goldberg and her desk and filing cabinet, it contained a whole lot of clothes: sharp suits and his tux and stuff picked out by Ulysses on one side, trendy things that Jake had picked out himself on the other. Most days, he could wear whatever he wanted until Ulysses wanted to show him off at some evening event. Today, he was on his own until forever. He picked out his most awesome and expensive jacket, creamy white, and some sharp beige trousers. Classy hand-stitched brown loafers from Italy: no flipflops at Osgood's, and no leather pants either. And a sleeveless aqua T-shirt in Pima cotton and matching socks. Not a sensible outfit to wear riding a motorcycle, but who the hell cared about sensible? Anyway, there was no way he was going to get going very fast between Sunset Island and Osgood's.

He combed his hair, smirked at himself in the mirror, grabbed his Raybans — last season's, but the hell with it — and ran quietly down the main staircase, the one that ended up in the huge living room. It was dark and silent, with the curtains drawn to spare the upholstery from the sun. He could hear kitchen noises faintly off past the stiffly formal dining room. The doors to Ulysses' study and his home office were shut. Jake eased open one leaf of the double front doors. There was a distant sound of running water: Luis hosing down the patio, probably.

Jake was getting into the sneaking thing, at this point. He slipped past the front of the house, past Luis' fussy, tight-assed plantings, and around the corner to the smaller garage, which held his car and bike. He worked the buttons of the high-tech lock, and the garage door slid silently up.

His current car gleamed at him: a Nissan Z, shiny silver. But there was no point in taking it such a short distance on Miami's nasty crowded streets. The bike wasn't quite as new, but he liked it: a Yamaha V-Max motorcycle, modest in size but comfortably powerful. He mounted up, leaving the helmet hanging on the wall, and roared out of the garage. There was even a special remote on the bike to close the garage door behind him and open the gates at the end of the wide driveway.

Jake made a graceful turn at the end of the drive, his hair flying out and the breeze in his ears, and zoomed up West 27th Street, past walled mansions — like Ulysses' but smaller — on one side and a median strip that was so lush that it was almost a park on the other.There was only one way off Sunset Island II, which was one of the things that Ulysses liked about living here. Jake made a sharp right and went across the causeway to the next artificial island, Sunset I. As he got onto the road to Miami Beach proper, he saw a familiar Mercedes convertible coming the other direction. His gut flipflopped for a second, then he grinned and swerved close to the driver's side.

Cameron Sampson, Ulysses' number-one thug, slammed on the brakes. Jake breezed past, followed by Cam's cursing. Jake almost felt sorry for him, sometimes. When he wasn't feeling scared shitless of him, the grabby little psycho. 

He crossed over into Miami and skimmed the edge of the Miami Golf Club's course. After a while the streets became lined with commercial buildings and apartments, and then the buildings got just a little more run-down. Jake turned off the main drag, and there was Osgood's. It had been a little apartment building once: four floors, four apartments to the floor. Now the ground floor was the bar and dance floor and kitchen, and the rest of it was Mrs. Osgood's apartment and the girls' rooms. The glass window in the top half of the door was painted with curly script letters that said _Osgood's_ , and that was all. You had to know what you were looking for.

Just as Jake was about to turn into the little alley of the driveway, a delivery van careened past on the other side. It went through a puddle and a huge splash of oily, gunky water went all over Jake's carefully chosen Miami-pastel outfit.

Jake cursed with his best gangbanger vocabulary, but the offending truck was gone. Hell, he hadn't even noticed the company name or anything. And it wasn't like Ulysses would do squat about a careless truck driver. Now he was either going to have to turn around and drive back home, or go into Osgood's covered with stinky, oily goo.

He didn't want to go back to the almost-empty house, where there was nothing to do but think about Ulysses.

His mood trashed, Jake drove the bike slowly into the tiny parking lot back there, with five spaces and room for the grocery truck to stop and unload. Mrs. Osgood's huge white Caddy was parked in one of the spaces. Jake parked his bike up near the back door and climbed off. Everything was quiet. He tried the back door, and it was unlocked, as he expected. The girls went in and out that way to go shopping and get their hair and stuff done, and there were the grocery deliveries. The kitchen was dark after the bright sunlight, and it was quiet: no one working yet, apparently. He took off his shades and tucked them into his jacket. There were paper towels, right? Yeah, there, in a dispenser on the wall near the sink, which had a tidy corner of small plates and cereal bowls stacked in one corner from the girls' breakfasts.

He snatched out a handful of paper towels and started mopping crap off his jacket and pants, swearing some more, creatively, enjoying the mental picture of the truck driver decked out in some of Ulysses' prime bondage gear. And then someone laughed.

Jake froze, his bummer mood catching fire with rage. And then, abruptly, the flames went out: it was a girl's laugh, high-pitched and cute. No way was he going to give one of the Osgood girls hell. He looked up, and there she was, in the doorway from the bar.

He didn't recognize this girl. She must be new: a thin white chick, very young and not too tall, with thick, light brown hair streaked with blond. Part of it was tied back, and she had long peek-a-boo bangs, too. She was dressed in a blue checked shirt with the tails tied over her flat midriff, denim cutoffs, and bright red casual slides on her feet. _Cute!_ he thought. But Mrs. Osgood probably didn't expect customers to see the kid looking like this. The ladies at Osgood's were usually dressed fashionably and with plenty of high-class makeup.

"Your curses — so clever! I just …"

She had a pretty accent : someplace in Europe, maybe? He grinned at her. "No problem, gorgeous. My boss and your boss are buddies. I just come by to hang out sometimes."

"Ah, you are with ... Carnival?"

Maybe he should have been insulted: Club Carnival was the public front for one of Miami's top gay escort services. But she was so _innocent_ looking that he couldn't get too pissed off. "Nah, they couldn't afford me. I'm pretty easy, but I'm not that cheap."

It was an old joke, but it took her a minute to process it through the language barrier, and then she laughed and even blushed a little bit. He chuckled along with her. "What's your name, cutie?"

"Shuri. No - Sherry?"

Apparently she wasn't used to her working name yet. Or maybe she just didn't like it. "Shuri. That's pretty. Where's that from?"

"Volgograd. It is a city in Russia. But I think Americans don't know it. You want to change? And wash? I have some clean clothes upstairs, and I put your nice coat and trousers to the cleaner's. And I will get you coffee or a drink. My 'pology for laughing."

Why did she have mens' clothes up there? But the offer sure beat anything else he was likely to get right now. "Sounds good. Hey, I might have trouble scrubbin' my back. Maybe you could gimme a hand."

She laughed and led him to the back stairway, which showed that she was taking the buddy thing seriously: customers went upstairs in the little elevator out front. As she climbed the stairs ahead of Jake, he watched her ass appreciatively: two perfect rounds under the snug denim, just the right size for him to cup in his hands.

"Hey, Commie Crybaby, you know you're not supposed to — oooh, Jake!"

Jake grinned. Rita was standing on the second floor landing. She was always in-your-face, but she was a sexy piece, and they'd had some good times. She was wearing a short hot pink bathrobe and not much else, as far as he could see. 

"Jake?" It was Mrs. Osgood: her apartment was on this floor, along with the wardrobes and other stuff she kept for the girls. She came out, smiling. Paula Osgood was four foot eleven of pure force of personality, always wearing towering heels, always heavily but skillfully made up, even on a quiet Tuesday afternoon like this. "Oh, honey, you always make me wish I was ten years younger. Even when you're covered in crap. What the hell happened to you?"

"A trucker hit a puddle as he passed me."

"Don't tell me you were riding your bike in that white jacket! Your boss doesn't pay for those fancy threads for you to treat 'em like that, honey. I know you got a car."

"Yeah, but who wants to drive a car in Miami?"

Rita had sidled over to him and threaded her arm through his, pressing her boobs into his biceps. Shuri's mouth drooped. Mrs. Osgood's eyes flicked between the two girls and she nodded, once. "Sherry, baby, why don't you take Mr. Jake upstairs for a nice visit? Just remember you got a manicure at 5:00, over at Starshine. And you have some things he can borrow to wear back, right? Rita, you take his messed-up stuff over to Royal Valet; they can deliver it tomorrow. Jake, you can crash while Sherry's getting her nails done, if you want, but you make sure you come pay me a call on your way out."

Shuri's smile returned, and Rita dropped his arm like a hot potato, pouting. She trailed after Jake and Shuri to the top floor, where the new girls always had their rooms. "I don't see why the baby gets to have you," she grumbled, once they were well out of Mrs. Osgood's hearing.

Shuri tossed her head and unlocked the door to her room. Jake grinned at Rita and started stripping down right there in the hall. Rita squealed with happy outrage. "Goddamn, Jake, were you born in a barn or what?"

He chucked her the splashed jacket, the pants, the socks, and the shirt, even though that was pretty much clean, and struck a muscle boy pose in the doorway, wearing only his briefs. "Ta da! See you later, mi señorita." Shuri grabbed his shoes and pulled him into the room. He let her.

Her face was still a bit stormy, but after a moment, she matched his grin. "You are _so bad!_ But Mrs. Osgood likes you."

"Yeah, she does. She spoils me rotten." He glanced down at his hands. "Hey, I better wash a little. Don't wanna get this oily crap on your clothes or sheets." 

When he came out of the bathroom, she had a couple of pairs of jeans and some T-shirts spread out on the bed for him to pick from. None of it was what he'd normally wear out on the street in Miami, but it all looked clean and comfortable, and it actually made him feel nostalgic for Aurora for a minute: him and Jim, dressed like that, hanging out watching TV. There was even a Van Halen T shirt.

He wondered who the Van Halen fan was, even as he picked up the shirt and the less worn pair of jeans. The get-up would look a little silly with his shoes, but he wouldn't have to wear it for long. Shuri folded the rest neatly and put it in a laundry basket in the corner. "You can put those on the chair for now," she said.

"Oh, yeah?" he teased. "Shouldn't I just put 'em on?"

"No! I am going to take good, good care of you first, you bad boy."

"Dressed like that?"

She smiled at him, sweetly, but disconcertingly, her eyes looked sad. "If you don't like this, do something about it, yes?"

He stepped forward and started to undo the knot in her shirt, leaning forward to kiss her as he did so. She kissed back shyly, and he felt big and protective. She was so sweet.

She couldn't have been in the trade very long, and he wondered, fleetingly, how old she really was.

Under her clothes she was wearing a cute little bra and matching bikini panties, light blue with white flowers and lace. Her boobs were on the small side, but firm and high. He picked her up, which made her giggle, and carried her to the bed. When he put her down, she reached for him and tried to make him lie down so she could work him over, but he wouldn't let her. "Come on, let me," he said, and kissed her mouth, her jaw, her throat, as he cupped her boob and stroked over the nipple through the light padding of the flowery bra. She liked that: he could feel her nipple hardening, and she was starting to breathe hard. 

He snaked one hand underneath her to undo the bra, and peeled it down and off. She reached for him, but he snagged her wrists and held her down as he licked and kissed her boobs, tracing his tongue around her little rosy pink nipples. Her skin was very pale, with some faint golden brown freckles, and his hands looked very dark and tanned against it. She gasped and wriggled, and he finally let her go again so he could work his way down over her flat little belly. She twisted her fingers in his hair and pulled a little. That surprised him, and he felt a rush of heat to his dick. He peeled her panties down over her slim, creamy thighs and nuzzled into the sandy hair between her legs, glad that she hadn't been waxed or even trimmed much. She whimpered and pushed up with her hips.

Jake held her down and licked into her slickness. He was going to make her happy, he thought: make her stop thinking about whoever it was who'd left her those T-shirts and that sad look in her eyes, make her think about him, at least for now. She smelled musky and clean at the same time, and he thought about how much he liked girls, liked making them make those soft, desperate noises. "Jake, Jake," she was saying, " _Bozhe moy, t'i khorosho … pozhal'usteh … ._ " 

God, that was so sexy, hearing her talk to him in Russian like that. If it _was_ Russian. How the hell would _he_ know?

She froze for a second, and then she came — probably. She was a pro, but he didn't think she was like Rita or Patti or any of the more experienced girls. She looked like she had been really into it.

He wiped his face on the sheet and sat back. She was lying there bonelessly, her pale skin rosy now against the white sheets. open and loose. He was suddenly ravenous for her and peeled off his briefs, his hard-on springing free. He grabbed her arms, pinning her to the mattress, ready to just start pounding her, and she turned her head, startled, eyes widening. The bruises on his biceps twinged and he froze, remembering looking at himself in the mirror that morning. Suddenly he felt a little cold and sick to his stomach. Letting go of her, he flopped on his back on the other side of the bed.

"Jake?" She was puzzled, and rolled over onto her side to look at him. He took a deep breath and got out a good smile for her. "Nah, I think I want you on top. Wanna look at you while you do me."

"Oh, OK!" She rose up on her knees and straddled him, pressing her small hands to his chest and maneuvering her warm, wet pussy onto him. She slid down with a contented little moan, closing her eyes, her face flushing all over again. She started to rock up and back down into his lap. "Mmmm, you feel so good in me."

"That's great — really great," he said, watching her pretty little boobies bounce gently with her movements and feeling her warmth clasping him so snug and nice. After a moment, she opened her eyes and looked down him him, smugly, and then she _squeezed_ him. Damn, he almost lost it right then: it was _not_ a trick he'd expected from her. "Damn! Where'd you learn that?"

"Krista," Shuri sighed. "She is teaching me."

Krista was one of the house's most senior girls, a plump brunette with grey eyes, not particularly gorgeous but brainy and very, very good at what she did. Jake's imagination promptly supplied some visuals for how they would look together, Krista's long, skillful fingers inside Shuri, Shuri's honey-colored hair spilled over Krista's big, beautiful boobs, and then he _did_ lose it. Shuri gasped and laughed, stroking his chest and leaning down to kiss him.

They lay snugly tangled after that, playing with each other's hair. "So," he said, finally, because the question was running round and round in his head. "Whose T-shirt did you give me? A boyfriend?"

He felt her stiffen a little, and then she sighed. "Yes. My boyfriend Jim."

Now it was Jake's turn to freeze up. "Jim?" he said, slowly. "So his name was James?"

"Not. It was Jaime. He was a Spanish guy."

His heart was banging so hard, he didn't understand why she hadn't noticed. "Where was this?"

"Chicago."

He damn near whited out for a second. But hell, there had to be ten thousand Latino guys named Jaime, and a couple of hundred of them in the Chicago area. "Shuri, do you have any pictures of this Jim guy?"

"Hmm? Why do you ask?" She pulled away to look at his face. He smirked at her.

"I just wanna see what kinda guy could make a pretty girl so sad."

She put her hand over her mouth and looked away. "I – I don't have any pictures. Sorry."

"Too bad."

"He was kind to children and to people in the neighborhood," she whispered. "He worked hard, at construction excavation. He always came home messy with mud. But I loved washing his dirty things for him."

Jake could imagine Jim doing that. Maybe Jake's childhood memories were just a dream after all.

"I don't know why he … changed the way he did," Shuri said. "My father said it was a sin for me to be with him, and when he started running with a gang … and then he stopped coming back to see me."

"Did you wait for him?"

"I did! I washed his clothes, I kept his things for him. I believed him. But he never came back."

She was crying now, quietly. Jake felt like a shithead. "Aw, don't cry," he said, helplessly. "It's not fair when pretty girls cry."

He held her tight until she finished sniffling. Finally, she raised her head and looked at the clock. "I need to wash, and go," she said. "You take a nap, OK?"

"Yeah, we all gotta do what Mrs. Osgood tells us, right?" 

She gave him a sad smile, and he escaped into sleep.

When he woke, it was almost 6:00. He got out of Shuri's bed and went to shower in a bathroom that smelled like her, drying off with towels that smelled like her hair. He pulled on the jeans and the T shirt. Shuri's Jim was a little bigger than he was: taller and wider.

Like Jake's brother Jim would have been. He was already well over six feet when he left, and Jake could just see those broad, bony shoulders in his mind's eye, the day that he had left them.

He left the room, letting the door lock behind him. Osgood's was starting to wake up for the evening, the girls working on their hair, trading clothes back and forth, posing for each other. He responded automatically to the cheery greetings and catcalls as he went down to talk to Mrs. Osgood. She was sitting on her sofa, reading the latest issue of _Vogue_ , already dressed for work in a tight, short black dress embroidered with crystals that shimmered as she moved, smoky black stockings, and shiny, strappy black shoes with four-inch heels. "Jake, sweetheart! Sit down right there. Patti, honey, get Mr. Jake a beer."

Jake eased back into the leather chair, soft and deep and enveloping. He felt weirdly uneasy, considering that he'd known Mrs. Osgood for as long as he'd lived in Miami.

"Baby, I need to thank you."

"Thank me?"

"For Sherry. I've hardly ever seen that girl smile. I was wondering whether I could keep her."

"Well … ."

"You notice those clothes are freshly washed. That poor, sweet child is always fussing around with them, like her boyfriend is gonna show up any minute and take her back home. So you can tell how much better you made her feel, 'cause she let you borrow them. You take good care of them, OK? And bring 'em back."

"Yeah, she told me about … Jim."

"Just another Latino boy with too much pride and not enough brains." Mrs. Osgood shook her head. "I'm not saying she's better off here than with him, but at least I'll make sure she doesn't start poppin' out babies every year." She went to the closet on the far side of the room and came back with a couple of dresses and some pairs of shoes. "She needs to start thinking about something else for a change. Look, what do you think about these?"

One dress was white, gauzy and lacy, with a high waist and spaghetti straps. The other one was light blue and strapless, with a short, full skirt and flowers woven into the fabric. One pair of shoes were white sandals, the other silver peep-toes. It was easy to imagine Shuri wearing them. "She'd look cute in those. But she has a nice butt, and with those things, you can't tell."

"Time enough for that later, when she's a little more hardened. Right now, I think making her look real young and innocent's the way to go. We get a lot of rich older men who'd really get a kick out of that, and the fact that she's a little awkward will just make it better. She's got that accent too: a cute little thing, far from home. Lotta guys eat that up."

Jake felt a shiver deep in his gut at the thought of some old creep getting off with that girl. It was stupid. What else did he expect? Shuri was a whore. That's what Osgood's was all about. The girls were for sale.

Just like Jake.

"How … how old is she?"

"Honey, she says she's eighteen. I'd say maybe seventeen, maybe not even that. But she wants to make money, and if I can keep her smiling, she will. You can trust your Auntie Paula for that." She looked at him, knowingly. "Anytime during the day that you want to come hang out with her, just drop on by. Speakin' of that: you're welcome to spend the evening, but you know you got to be dressed right. You want to cut along home now, come back later? I know Mr. Ulysses has a whole closet full of classy threads for you back there at his big house."

"Uh, yeah." His head was all wrong, wavery and weird. Getting out of here sounded like a good idea. He managed to pull himself together, head on down the last flight of stairs, respond cheerfully to the goodbyes and see-ya-laters, and climb onto the bike.

He felt a little better then, in the open air, just him and the bike. (The bike that Ulysses had paid for.) He zoomed up and down streets for a while, aimlessly. The sun began to set. He found himself heading out of town on the North Bay Causeway. He turned off into the parking lot for Pelican Harbor Marina and tooled over to the far side, where there was going to be a park. Right now, it was just marshy stuff and palm trees. He never stopped here, because there was nothing to do.

He sat on the bike and did just that: nothing. He watched the sun sinking behind the buildings on the mainland, throwing red and gold beams onto the water of Biscayne Bay, onto his hands where they rested on the handlebars, the hands that had caressed that messed-up little girl back at Osgood's. The hands that had worked Ulysses' dick last night. The breeze picked up, blowing his hair around like streamers. The night came on, stars coming out back over the islands and lights coming on in the high-rises, the clubs, the gambling houses, and restaurants. Miami was busting open for business, loud and brash and full of lively juices. He could go anywhere, play anything, eat and drink what he wanted, screw whoever took his fancy.

He was getting cold. He revved up the bike and turned it back to Miami Beach. He'd go back home, sneak in the way he snuck out, eat the cereal and chips that Ulysses had paid for, drink beer and maybe some bourbon, and play videogames until his eyes couldn't stay open. And go to bed.

_Fifty-eight days until he's back from South America. Tomorrow it would be fifty-seven._

Things would look different in the morning. Damn straight they would.

 


End file.
